


In This White Wave

by anr



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-26
Updated: 2009-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lot he always thought impossible about T'Pol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This White Wave

**Author's Note:**

> Post- _Impulse_ (3x05)

The infirmary doors open automatically.

Hesitating, he takes a step back and watches the doors close again.

_Idiot_ , he thinks, and moves forward, the doors opening and admitting him across the threshold.

Phlox looks up from where he's feeding his bat. "Problem with the doors?" he asks curiously, smiling, and Trip shakes his head.

"Thought I'd forgotten something," he lies. He looks around uncomfortably. "So, um, where's..."

"This way." Leaving the bat, Phlox moves around to the curtained area of the rear of the infirmary, pausing when he notices Trip hasn't moved from just inside the doors. "Commander?"

"T'Pol -- is she -- I mean, is she, uh --" Scratching at his arm, he wonders again why he didn't just send Rostov or Taylor to assist the Doc.

Phlox's face changes, muting into an expression he's not so sure he wants to identify. "She'll be fine, Commander. Nothing a little time and rest won't help."

_Right_. Straightening, he nods and gestures for Phlox to continue. "Lead the way, Doc."

  


* * *

  


It had taken him a little over four hours to move all of the Trellium D to the cargo hold, to check and recheck the bio-hazard seals and make plans to upgrade them. He's not sure he trusts anything that can turn the Subcommander into what the Captain said she'd almost become.

Into what he sees now.

"I gave her something to help her sleep," says Phlox, watching as Trip removes the broken restraints from the side of the bio-bed. "She should rest for another couple of hours yet."

Nodding, Trip tries to focus on the job -- the sooner he's done, the sooner he's gone -- and not on the woman sleeping inches from him. The woman who looks blank, still, and not in the good way, either, like when they're breathing and meditating and stuff, but _too_ still.

He watches her carefully for a moment to remind himself that she _is_ breathing, and alive, and releases a breath of his own when he sees her chest rise and fall.

Phlox clears his throat, and Trip snaps back to what he's doing, yanking free the remnants of the wrist holds. "Shouldn't be a minute," he mutters.

Phlox nods, smiling easily. "Take your time."

  


* * *

  


The chime of the infirmary's comm barely registers as he concentrates on tightening the new restraints to the underside of bed, and it's not until Phlox is standing beside him that he realises something's happened.

"Chef's cut himself," Phlox says, briefly studying the monitor feeds on the wall behind T'Pol. "Could I trouble you to remain here until I return?"

_But I thought you said she's fine_... He swallows his words, and nods. "Sure," he manages. "I'm off-duty now anyway."

"Thank you, Commander," he says, already half-way to door. "I won't be long."

  


* * *

  


He finishes installing the new restraints and wonders if he should put them on her, but Phlox hadn't mentioned needing them for immediate use, only that they had been broken. He busies himself with cleaning up his tools and parts instead. The Doc's been gone for close to half an hour now, and should be back any minute -- he tries not to feel too relieved by that thought.

He's not sure why the sight of T'Pol on the bio-bed is freaking him out so much, but he is pretty damn sure he doesn't _want_ to know why either.

_Idiot_ , he thinks again.

Stacking his tools on the counter by the door, he pushes himself up to sit on the main bio-bed and wait.

Then slides off and wanders over to the bat's cage and considers poking his fingers through the grill. Thinks better of it.

He feels nervous and on edge, jumpy, like he's had too much stimulant and not enough sleep. He almost laughs at the irony -- of all the nights to be in need of a neuropressure session...

He starts counting the jars on the shelves. The contents of the jars of the shelves. The frequency modulations needed to improve the shuttlepod shields.

There's a sound from behind the curtain.

He's at her side before the noise has even had a chance to echo and fade, his heartbeat racing with sudden adrenaline. "T'Pol?" he asks cautiously, quietly, noting quickly that she doesn't _seem_ any different.

But her right arm _is_ now closer to the edge of the bed, like she's shifted in her sleep, and strangely enough that reassures him ( _not so still, after all_ ). Carefully, he touches her, fingers spanning her wrist as he moves her arm back to her side.

With a keening cry, she lurches upright, eyes wide-open and -- in the brief second he has to note it -- terror-struck. He rocks back a half-step as she throws herself at him, her arms reaching for his neck before he can raise his own hands to ward off her attack.

Should've restrained her, he thinks briefly.

There's an awkward, tense moment as he struggles to get her hands away from him (without pulling her off the bed) and she fights to keep them there (maybe he should keep stepping back? maybe the threat of imbalance would help) that ends, suddenly, when he realises she's not attacking him.

Not in the usual sense, anyway.

Surprised, his hands drop to his sides, mind struggling to catch up and comprehend the situation as she wraps her arms around his neck completely, pressing against him and holding on tight.

Holding on _real_ tight. Like... an embrace, or --

He shakes his head in disbelief, dismissing the description. Or _something_.

On autopilot, it seems, his hands have raised to touch her back, to pat her shoulder, and when he realises what it is he's doing he freezes again, a desperate need for the infirmary's comm to sound consuming him. He wants a voice to chime over the soft background chittering of the Doc's medical menagerie, and her rough breathing, and demand his presence somewhere else, anywhere else, anywhere but _here_ , with this Vulcan (who looks like T'Pol but who can't really _be_ T'Pol) in his arms.

She makes a sound against his shoulder, a sound that -- from anyone else -- he'd think was a sob, and his mind races with sudden rationalisations (he's asleep and dreaming, most likely a nightmare) because he knows -- _knows_ \-- that T'Pol doesn't cry out, and T'Pol doesn't touch like this, and T'Pol is not afraid.

Her nails rake the back of his neck and the discomfit is like a proverbial pinch; felt and real.

_This is T'Pol on Trellium D_ , he thinks then, _without control, with emotions, this is T'Pol broken,_ and now there's an urge rising to disobey the Captain's orders. To make his way down to cargo bay one and carefully, thoroughly, methodically move every last grit of Trellium D into the nearest airlock.

(For a moment he can even feel the smooth surface of the release button beneath his fingers, can see the containers floating away from the ship. Away from here. From her.)

He shudders, and feels suddenly unsteady, as if his world (the ship) has just spun on its axis (flipped over, grav-plating be damned), his arms tightening instinctively as a new possibility occurs to him, _another anomaly?_

But the comm is silent and, since he in no way wants to examine any other (more personal, more _emotional_ ) alternatives, he removes his arms from around her carefully and reclines her towards the bio-bed. She stirs fretfully ( _no, no. not fretfully. not T'Pol. not possible_ ) and her fingers claw for a fresh hold. He winces and fends her off with difficulty, twisting until he can hold onto her wrists and pull her hands away from him.

"Get some rest, Subcommander," he says, freeing his grip gradually, reassured when she doesn't make any sudden moves. He forces joviality. "You look like hell."

No raised eyebrow in response, no look of cool indifference. That worries him a hell of a lot more than he'd like and his smile falters. He turns away before it can fall completely. He'll wait outside in the main area again.

Movement. He freezes even as his peripheral vision catches her sudden stretch, as her fingers wrap around his hand.

"T'Pol," he says, protesting.

"Commander," her tone is quiet and controlled and he welcomes it gladly, "I --"

But then she stops. Actually _stops_. And for one brief, terrifying, moment he thinks he can see her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

Impossible, though. T'Pol would never bite her lip.

Or start a sentence she didn't intend to finish.

Or grip his hand so tightly he'd think amputation his only avenue of escape...

There's a lot he always thought impossible about T'Pol. And he's not so sure he's liking being proved wrong.

"I have to go," he says, "I'm sorry. If I stay, the Doc'll no doubt have my guts for garters or slug food or somethin'." Or probably not. All he knows is that he has to step back now, put some space between them, some perspective... _and where the hell is the Doc anyway?_

"Please." Her gaze is unwavering, her hand clammy, but it's her quiet plea that makes something in his chest lurch against his ribs. He breathes out quickly.

"Look, you need your rest and, hell, we both know me stayin' won't help with that. Too annoyin', remember?" He's using logic against her. The irony is not lost on him.

"I am... unwilling... to sleep further."

"Nightmares, huh?" She doesn't answer but her grip tightens on his hand. He winces. "Right. Vulcan's don't have nightmares."

Sighing, he looks away, looks down, desperately trying to think of something -- anything -- to say that will convince her to let go.

His mind blanks, as silent as the comm.

There's a storage container nearby. Hooking the edge with his foot, he tugs it closer and takes a seat, absently hoping there's none of the Doc's little critters inside, just dying to eat through his shorts.

"If there is," he mutters out loud, shifting uncomfortably, "I'm blamin' you."

She stares at him, silent, and for a moment he thinks he might just give _anything_ to see that eyebrow arch...

It's an alarming thought. He dismisses it quickly.

Focusing on the hand holding his, he uses his free hand to slowly pry her fingers and nails from his flesh. She resists and he stares her down, trying his best not to wince and curse.

"C'mon," he says, low and quiet. "That's it. Nothin' to it. C'mon now, easy, easy."

It seems to take forever for her grip to loosen enough for him to break free.

He holds on tight.

"There we go." He smiles again, and it's a little less forced this time, as his hand turns in hers so that _his_ fingers can wrap around _her_ palm. (And now he's holding hands with T'Pol which, even with a half-dozen neuropressure sessions under his belt, is mostly unbelievable and not at all like neuropressure.

He tells himself not to think about that either.)

On the bio-bed, she curls onto her side, facing him. Watching him.

"S'okay," he says, and shifts again, settling. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

Not going anywhere at all. 

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/364061.html>


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